I have set up this site, primarily, to pen down my passing reflections, thoughts and important quotes from Habermas, in the hope to get some stimulating reactions.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

analytic-Continental division

"I agree that there is no fruitful analytic-Continental division in terms of substantive doctrines distinctively characteristic of the two sides. But it seems to me that we can still draw a significant distinction between analytic and Continental philosophy in terms of their conceptions of experience and reason as standards of evaluation. Typically, analytic philosophy reads experience in terms of common-sense intuitions (often along with their developments and transformations in science) and understands reason in terms of formal logic. Continental philosophy, by contrast, typically sees experience as penetrating beyond the veneer of common-sense and science, and regards reason as more a matter of intellectual imagination than deductive rigor. In these terms, Continental philosophy still exists as a significant challenge to the increasing hegemony of analytic thought . . . ."

2 comments:

Habermas seems to make for a particularly interesting test case for what people's criteria are for the analytic/continental divide. Some speak as if he is clearly, obviously contintental. Others either claim him as analytic, or close to it, or at least a very analytic version of a continental.

An interesting version of the question might be: is there any sense in which Habermas is more "continental"--other than the obvious and hopefully irrelevant point of where he was born--than, say, Charles Taylor or Robert Brandoom?

I think if judge by the two criteria put forth by Gutting Brandom wil fail to be a continetnal philosopher on account of the first and Habermas does critcises his conception of 'experience.' I am not sure about Taylor though.

But see my previous post which explains the sense in which Habermas regards the distinciton between analytic and contientnal philosophy as still valid.

Habermas is a German philosopher -- "the leading systematic philosopher of our time," Richard Rorty of the University of Virginia calls him. But Habermas comes to this debate as much more than just a philosopher. "In terms of range and depth there is no one close to him," says Thomas McCarthy, a professor of humanities and philosophy at Northwestern University. "Habermas has been able to go into discussions in political theory, in sociology, in psychology, in legal theory -- in a dozen different disciplines -- and become one of the dominant voices in each one."

About Me

I am a philosopher by training. I wrote my PhD dissertation on Habermas and the possibility of transcendence from within. Beside Foucault and Habermas, I am interested in the work of Robert Brandom,John McDowell, and Charles Travis.